The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has canceled a significant portion of its advertising buy in at least two key Missouri television markets during the final week before the election, POLITICO has learned.

Two Missouri television stations told POLITICO the cancellation of ads designed to target front-running Republican Roy Blunt occurred Wednesday morning.

Text Size

-

+

reset

POLITICO 44

“They did put a cancellation through the week of Oct. 25,” said Denise Daley, the national sales manager for KMBC, one of the top stations in Kansas City. “They had partial cancellations before that, but this came in this morning.”

Cindy Solomon, a national sales manager for the FOX affiliate in St. Louis, also told POLITICO she received notice the DSCC would cancel the reserved time between Oct. 25 and Nov. 1.

According to a Republican source who tracks ad buys, the decision removes from across the state an estimated $1.3 million reservation for television ads against Blunt.

Blunt faces Democrat Robin Carnahan for the open seat currently held by retiring GOP Sen. Kit Bond.

DSCC spokesman Eric Schultz said it was “dead wrong” to conclude the committee had pulled entirely out of the state and noted the committee makes its weekly purchases on Fridays. And Democrats could decide to reinvest in Carnahan’s candidacy in the final week at any time.

“We are on TV in Missouri this week. As with all states and all buys, decisions are made on a week-to-week basis,” Schultz said.

Shifting resources in and out of a state is not uncommon this late in a midterm cycle, particularly with such a large playing field. But Carnahan, Missouri’s secretary of state, will likely have to show some late signs that she’s within striking distance to bring back the Beltway cavalry.

Two public polls in early October showed Blunt, a seven-term southwest Missouri congressman, lengthening his lead over Carnahan to between 8 and 13 points. While few Republicans believe he’ll win a statewide race with that margin, most are confident he’s comfortably ahead with a single-digit lead in a battleground state that President Obama failed to deliver at the peak of his popularity in 2008.

While the the DSCC is on the air against Blunt this week, Daley said the size of its initial buy was reduced to about a quarter of the original reservation.

The St. Louis Beacon reported Tuesday that the DSCC’s airtime buy of $34,355 this week in St. Louis is just a fraction of the $182,660 the committee spent during the previous two weeks in the market.

Blunt and Carnahan are preparing to face off in their only two debates Thursday and Friday. On Thursday night, the two will debate for an hour in a taped meeting on Kansas City public television. On Friday, they will spar before the Missouri Press Association in a untelevised debate in Lake Ozark.

Carnahan debuted a new ad Wednesday accusing Blunt of ducking more joint appearances, with the candidate appearing on a stage alongside a cardboard cut-out of her opponent.

“Rep. Roy Blunt – he’ll do anything to avoid talking about his record in Washington,” Carnahan says in the ad.